Stephen Jarrett and how the Corsi collection came to Oxford

Monica T. Price

When the British Museum was in covert negotiations to buy Corsi's
collection, Oxford geologist Dr William Buckland was one of those who wrote
to the Museum's Trustees to recommend the purchase. The Trustees
prevaricated. Meanwhile, a young student Stephen Jarrett braved winter
weather to travel to Rome and buy Corsi's collection as a gift for the
University of Oxford. What made Jarrett go on this journey, and why should a
collection of marbles mean so much to him?

Jamaican fortunes

Stephen Jarrett, born in 1805, was the younger son of
Herbert Newton Jarrett of Golden Grove, Jamaica, and his wife
Anne1.
Both sides of his family had long associations with Jamaica.
Stephen's maternal great-grandfather was Thomas Wallen, a President
of the Council of Jamaica. His paternal grandfather, John Jarrett,
owned valuable Jamaican estates including Golden Grove, Silver Grove
and Kent. John Jarrett returned in his later years to live at
Freemantle House, outside Southampton. When he died in 1809, the
Freemantle property was found to be heavily mortgaged and was sold
for redevelopment. His Jamaican estates, some of the most valuable
sugar plantations in the country, were inherited by his only son,
Herbert Newton (Stephen's father), who also acquired properties in
Marylebone, London, and in Nursling, Hampshire.

Herbert Newton Jarrett died just two years after his
father, leaving the greater part of his estates and fortune to his
elder son John. Younger son Stephen inherited the Guisborough
(Guisboro) and Spring Garden estates in Jamaica2.
Even as a child he had £400 a year at his disposal, although it is
probable that a substantial part was expended in legal fees, a
number of disputes relating to the estates being taken to the London
courts for resolution. Stephen, John and their surviving sister Anne
resided with their mother at her property, Camerton House, a short
distance from Bath in Somerset. Both Stephen and John were to
receive a privileged education first at Eton and then at
Oxford.

The church in Jarrett's home village of Camerton

Stephen Jarrett came up to Magdalen College, Oxford
in 1823, where he joined the ranks of the gentlemen commoners, very
wealthy young undergraduates who in exchange for higher fees received
such special privileges as dinner at the high table, and occupation
of the finest rooms in college. They were not reading for Honours
degrees, and to ensure 'study' did not detract from their
preoccupations with pleasurable pursuits - hunting, shooting,
wining, dining and gambling - these élite students would pay others
of lesser means to write or embellish their weekly essays. Such was
the antipathy towards academic study within the ranks that a few
years later another gentleman commoner, John Ruskin, was informed by
his peers he had committed 'grossest
lèse-majesté against the order of
gentlemen commoners' by writing an essay of such merit that he was
asked to read it aloud in Hall3.

Negotiations

Jarrett travelled to Rome during the Christmas
vacation of 1826, and at the beginning of January 1827, he visited
Corsi to buy his collection of marbles as a gift for the University.
He asked Corsi to bring the number of
specimens to 1,000 and offered to have the Supplementary Catalogue
printed at his own expense4. Corsi agreed to the
sale; accepting a much more generous offer than another he had
recently received.

A month earlier, Sydney Smirke, architect to the British
Museum was carrying out covert negotiations on behalf of the Keeper of
Mineralogy, Charles Konig, to buy the collection for the Museum. Smirke said
it was for 'his friend in the country' and he drove a hard bargain. Corsi
responded:

'Nonetheless, you ask me if I would be happy with £500 without
the English stones and without the books. ... I think we can easily come to
an agreement on the English stones. Lord Compton has told me that it is not
easy to get them over there unless from the Duke of Devonshire, and that
even receiving them as a gift, the work alone would cost more than I am
selling them for. Such stones separated from the collection, are of little
interest and I therefore intend them to stay together with the collection.
... I deal in Roman scudi without concerning myself with the gain or loss of
the exchange from sterling. If you, or some bookseller, wishes to acquire
the 250 copies of the catalogue then we could add to the previously
mentioned sum another 150 scudi ... . I assure you that whoever sees the
collection buys the catalogue; that the work is all new; that it has cost me
a lot of hard work and that it deserves public acclaim. I inform you finally
that I do not undertake anything else, that delivery and packing of the
stones are all at you friend's expense ...' 5

Initially the Trustees declined the purchase6. Konig canvassed support from others,
including Dr William Buckland, Reader in Geology and Mineralogy at the
University of Oxford, who had seen Corsi's collection during his wedding
tour of 1826. Buckland wrote to the Museum Trustees:

'... I have no hesitation in saying that it is
quite
unique in its kind, and such as is never likely to be made
by any other individual, that it is in the highest degree
interesting not only in an Geological and Mineralogical point as
affording splendid 6specimens of the most beautiful rocks existing, but also as
illustrating the History of the Arts both of
Ancient and Modern Times, by containing a
specimen of almost every known stone (including Granites, Marbles,
Porphyries, Jaspers and Serpentines etc. ) that have ever been
applied to the purposes of ornamental architecture or sculpture. ...
I cannot think it too dear at £700 'M. Corsi showed me a Statement
of what the specimens had actually cost him, and this was I think
about £500 ...'7

Dr William Buckland lecturing in the University

At their meeting in February 1827, unaware that Jarrett had already
bought the collection, the Museum Trustees changed their minds and approved
the purchase8. Konig was to be disappointed.

Motives and rewards

Although Dr William Buckland and Stephen Jarrett were not members of
the same college and Jarrett did not attend Buckland's lectures,9 it appears they both had motives for
acquiring the Corsi collection for Oxford. Buckland, like Charles Konig, was
an enthusiastic collector, to the extent that by 1830 the geological
collections had outgrown the available space in both the Ashmolean Museum
and his rooms at Christ Church, and new rooms in the Clarendon building were
provided for their accommodation10.

Stephen Jarrett may have developed a penchant for fine marble from his
grandfather. When John Jarrett purchased Freemantle House, he employed fine
Italian marble for its decoration, as Prosser describes:

'the entrance hall is ornamented with marble columns… The drawing
room is ornamented with an elegant statuary marble chimney piece, brought
from Italy by Mr Jarrett; the design is taken from an ancient sarcophagus,
now in the gallery of the Capitol at Rome… The dining room, thirty-two feet
by twenty-one feet, has its wall lined entirely with Italian marble (which
Mr Jarrett effected at very considerable cost) and contains a massive
side-board of verd antique.' 11

Here, he hosted fine dinners, welcoming the Prince Regent among his
guests12. It was a room that his grandson would have
heard about and perhaps seen. Many years later it was still a subject of
pride within the family13. Stephen Jarrett had the financial
resources to emulate his esteemed elder relative by investing in fine
marble, a youthful sense of adventure, and aspirations for the kudos enjoyed
by benefactors to the University. To Buckland, he was perhaps the ideal
candidate for a mission to Rome to purchase Corsi's collection.

Jarrett's donation of the collection and catalogues
was accepted by the Hebdomedal Council of the University on 5
February 182714. Buckland
was instrumental in arranging the award of an Honorary degree of
Master of Arts to Jarrett,
15conferred
the following June, and his hand-written draft of the graduation
oration praises the student
16.

Buckland's draft of his oration given at the presentation
of Stephen Jarrett's honorary MA degree.

It appears Jarrett did not know the Trustees of the British Museum had
initially refused to purchase the collection; but he knew he was bidding
against that institution, evident from an account by the Rev. John Skinner,
Rector at Camerton, of a conversation in which Jarrett was asking for a
recommendation to become a Member of the Society of Antiquaries:

'...he thought he had a claim on the Antiquarian Society, because he
had purchased the ancient marbles at Rome and presented them to the
University, on which account he had received an Honorary Degree of Master of
Arts... I then said, I had heard of him having presented some Marbles to the
University, and imagined at first, they were ancient sculptured figures? Oh
no! he said, infinitely more curious in a Geological point of view. They are
patterns (of the size of bricks) of all the Marbles employed by the Romans
in their superb works... I said I ... should like to look [the catalogue]
over, in order to give me some idea of what his present was. Oh! said he, it
is indeed a valuable one: the British Museum wished to obtain it, and sent
out agents for the purpose; but I outbid them. What, I asked, was it put up
to Auction? Oh yes! we bid hard against each other, and I got it: there are
no less than a thousand feet of Marble; and the great difficulty at present
is to know what to do with it. I said, I supposed it might make a fine
Pavement for some of the Public Rooms at Oxford? Oh! it is infinitely too
valuable for a Pavement; and the Geologist ought to have an opportunity to
examine separately every piece, which he could not do if it became a
fixture... I said, it must have been an expensive purchase. Oh! you may
imagine I did not get it for as many pounds as there are feet. I am to
understand then it cost you above £1000? Oh yes! a great deal more; but I
did not grudge the money as it was so great a national benefit: and from
what he said it appeared he thought that his having bought it over to the
Country intitled him at once to become a member of the Antiquarian Society.
17'

The size of the stones appears to expanded markedly in Jarrett's mind,
and if he did pay over £1,000 for the collection, Corsi must have been
well-pleased indeed for the British Museum were offering about half that
figure! Jarrett goes on to say he expected a visit from Buckland to Camerton
that September, but the Rector, far from enamoured with the 'pretended
Science, alias Humbug which the young people have derived from the Lectures
of the good natured Professor', declined to meet him. In response to
Jarrett's request for a recommendation, Skinner wrote 'I would just as soon
recommend my Donkey...' and Jarrett never did achieve the membership he
sought.18

Stephen Jarrett's later years

Jarrett was given special dispensation to remain at the University for
a further year19, during which time he edited a new edition
of the 1743 treatise on antique marbles by Blasius Caryophilus, sixty copies
of which were privately printed in 189320. Aspiring to
continue as a benefactor to the University, he called to see Skinner in 1829
with a list of coins which 'the University of Oxford wished him to procure
for them. They are all of the scarcest kind. I gave him a silver Honorius,
which was on the list.'21If any coins were ever sent to Oxford there
is no record of their accession into the numismatic collection of the
Ashmolean Museum22.

In the years when Jarrett was up at Oxford, Skinner wrote
deprecatingly of him as an 'upstart' 'so excessively insolent', that he had
'all the curiosity of his mother without her tact'23. But in 1829 his feelings had modified. 'I
think his manners are much altered for the better. Adversity is a great
tutor, and he has experienced losses in his West India property, which may
be of real benefit if it teaches him humility, as well as a determination to
employ his own talents, and rely on his own resources more than on uncertain
wealth.'24
In 1829, following the death of his mother, and the
succession of his elder brother to the Camerton property, Jarrett
moved to Nursling in Hampshire where he died, unmarried, in
1855. His niece remembered her late uncle kindly 'He was a
great scholar & a man of polished manners & high culture & wd be
very likely to present such a collection [of marbles] to his
University.'25

1Biographical information about members of the
Jarrett family comes from A. Kerr-Jarrett'sOrange Tree Valleywebsite (http://www.orange-tree-valley.co.uk);
Jarrett family papers held in the Somerset Record Office,
Taunton, Somerset; Eton School, (1864),The Eton School Lists 1791-1860, 2nd edition (E.P. Williams, London) 104;
Foster, J. (1888),Alumni Oxoniensis: the Members of the University
of Oxford, 1715-1886vol.2 (London: Joseph Foster); and inscriptions in
St Peter's Church, Camerton.

2Stephen Jarrett Esq. In accot.
Currt. with the Trustees of John Jarrett Esq.
deceased; and other Jarrett family papers in theSomerset Records Office, Taunton,
Somerset.

3The incident and the status of gentlemen commoners
is described by Batchelor, J. (2000),John Ruskin: No Wealth but Life(Chatto & Windus, London), 33-37.

11Prosser, G.E. (1833-1839),Select illustrations of HampshireJ.A. Arch, London
(unpaginated).The marble room was completely destroyed
when Freemantle Hall was pulled down around 1852.
The story of Freemantle Hall is given in Leonard,
A.G.K. (1989),More Stories of Southampton
Streets. Paul Cave
Publications Ltd., Southampton.

13John Jarrett's marble décor was remembered with
pride some 75 years later by Stephen's niece: ms; letter
from Miss Jarrett to Col. Stanier Waller, 22 October 1901.
OUMNH Min.Colls.archive Corsi/016, Oxford University Museum
of Natural History.

14Ms; Minutes of the Hebdomedal Board, University of
Oxford, for 5 February 1827; transcript by H.E. Bowman.
OUMNH Min.Colls.archive Inst/87, Oxford University Museum of
Natural History.

23Ms; Journal of Rev. J. Skinner, Rector of
Camerton, 15 Aug 1828, 10 Juy 1827, and4 Sep 1828,British Library Add MSS 33698. It should be noted
that John Skinner was himself a very unhappy and irascible
man who depended on the Jarrett family as his patrons. At
that time he believed they were trying to oust him from his
position in favour of Stephen's brother-in-law, Mr Gooch.
For published extracts of the diary, see Coombs, H. & P.
Coombs (eds.) (1971),Diary of a Somerset Rector 1803-1834.Bath: Kingsmead.